Raiders fall 30-27 after Chiefs score twice in 19 seconds off a kickoff fumble

The Raiders held the ball for 35 minutes and 42 seconds, gained 437 yards, picked up 28 first downs to Kansas City's 18, and lost. That is the shape of it. Allegiant Stadium spent most of three quarters believing, and then watched a three-point lead become an eleven-point deficit across two possessions and nineteen seconds of game clock.

Matt Gay's 48-yard field goal with 4:53 left put Las Vegas ahead 19-17, and the win probability sat at 54 percent. Kansas City took the kickoff at its own 35, handed Kenneth Walker III the ball twice for five yards, and faced third and five at its own 40 with 3:35 showing. That is the snap the afternoon turned on. Patrick Mahomes threw deep left to Tyquan Thornton for 55 yards, Treydan Stukes could not get over the top of it, and an unnecessary roughness penalty on Quay Walker moved the ball to the two. Walker scored on the next play. The two-point try failed. Chiefs 23, Raiders 19, with 3:21 to go, and Las Vegas was still in it.

It was not in it nineteen seconds later. Harrison Butker's kickoff came down at the Las Vegas 6, Dareke Young brought it out to the 21, and Jeffrey Bassa knocked the ball loose. Jack Cochrane recovered at the Raiders 22. Walker went right end on the first snap for 22 yards and a touchdown. Two Kansas City possessions, two plays from scrimmage, eleven points, and the Raiders' chances fell from eighteen percent to seven tenths of one percent. Kirk Cousins did find Brock Bowers for a 20-yard touchdown with 1:46 left and hit Cody White for two to make it 30-27. The onside kick did not come back. A final drive that began at the Las Vegas 1 with 1:16 on the clock reached the Kansas City 49 before Xavier Nwankpa intercepted a throw meant for Michael Mayer with ten seconds left.

Offense

The plan was to throw it, and then throw it again. Cousins put up 52 attempts, completed 31 for 365 yards with two touchdowns and the interception that ended the game, and he was not sacked once, playing behind a line without Jackson Powers-Johnson. That part of it held. Volume was never the problem.

Conversion was. Seventy-eight plays, 437 yards, 5.6 a play, and only 19 points through 56 minutes: 5 of 14 on third down and 0 for 2 inside the red zone. Both touchdowns were thrown from outside the twenty, Ian Thomas on a 27-yard ball in the first quarter and Bowers on a 20-yarder in the last two minutes. When the field got short, the offense ran out of answers.

The run game was 26 carries for 72 yards, 2.8 a carry, with 17 of those yards coming in the first half. Ashton Jeanty took 15 for 58, and a single 19-yard carry in the fourth quarter accounted for a third of that. He was more useful as a receiver, six catches for 68 on eight targets, including the 12-yard pickup on fourth and ten that kept the last drive alive. Mike Washington Jr. had nine carries for 18 yards. For a 437-yard day the explosive plays were thin: the longest gain of the game was Jeanty's 28-yard catch in the third quarter, and nothing went for thirty.

Mayer was the steadiest target, eight catches for 82 yards on ten looks. Bowers drew eleven targets and turned them into six catches, 86 yards and the score. Tre Tucker caught four of eight for 44, which includes the 23-yarder that gave the final drive a pulse and three deep incompletions that did not.

Defense

Against the pass this was a decent afternoon. Mahomes finished 15 of 30 for 225 yards. Maxx Crosby put five hits on him and shared a sack, Quay Walker had the only full sack, and Hezekiah Masses led the team with seven tackles and two passes defended. Kansas City converted 5 of 13 third downs and ran only 58 plays.

Against the run it came apart. Walker carried 22 times for 177 yards and two touchdowns, and the Chiefs averaged 7.3 a carry as a team. The worst of it arrived with 30 seconds left in the third quarter: Kansas City started at its own 16, and Walker went right guard on the first snap and did not stop until the Las Vegas 8. Taron Johnson ran him down and saved the touchdown, and Thornton caught the eight-yard score two plays later anyway. Folorunso Fatukasi, Thomas Booker IV and Tonka Hemingway managed nine tackles between them, and the interior did not hold a gap on either of the drives that decided it.

Thornton won his matchup without much argument, five catches for 111 yards and two touchdowns on eight targets, first on the two-yarder that tied it in the first quarter and then on the 55-yarder over Stukes. The defense did not force a turnover. When Creed Humphrey sailed a snap with 1:35 to go, it was Mahomes who fell on it, not a Raider.

Special teams

Gay was flawless. Four field goals on four attempts, two of them from 48 yards, 13 of the team's 27 points. AJ Cole punted three times at a 47.3 average. The return game produced 148 yards on five kickoffs, 29.6 a return, and Dylan Laube's 53-yarder to open the fourth quarter set up a field goal.

The same unit gave the game away. Young's fumble at the Las Vegas 21 with 3:21 left handed Kansas City a touchdown it never had to earn, in a game decided by three points. There was more: Nikko Remigio returned a third-quarter punt 27 yards to the Kansas City 42, and back in the first quarter Matt Araiza, the Chiefs punter, ran a fake 12 yards from his own 30 on fourth and nine with the Raiders not set for it.

Coaching

Klint Kubiak told CBS at halftime, with his team leading 13-10 and holding 17 rushing yards, "Gotta be better, but you know what? We're winning. We're gonna win the game." The team came out of the break ready enough, driving to the Kansas City 18 on the opening possession of the third quarter, and the second-half rushing total climbed to 55 yards. The points did not follow. Fourteen second-half points, eight of them inside the final 1:46.

The decision that will sit worst came on that third-quarter drive. Gay made a 41-yard field goal, Kansas City was flagged for illegal formation, and the penalty was taken, putting the Raiders at fourth and two from the 18 instead of three points on the board. Cousins' throw to Jeanty fell incomplete. In a three-point loss, that is the margin, left on the field by choice.

Elsewhere the calls were sound. A direct snap to Connor Heyward converted fourth and one in the second quarter. Taking the 48-yard field goal on fourth and two from the Kansas City 30 with 4:53 left was the right call with that lead. Burning the last two timeouts at 1:40 and 1:35 of the fourth was correct and it worked, getting the ball back with 1:16 to play even if it came back at the goal line. The run game got 26 carries it never earned, and the team was not ready for the first-quarter fake punt.

What it means

Las Vegas is 3-1, second in the AFC West behind a Kansas City team that is 4-0. The first three weeks were real, and so is this. What has shown up more than once is the inability to stop a running back: the Chargers put up 127 yards at 4.0 a carry in Week 2, the Saints 148 at 5.3 in Week 3, and the Chiefs 189 at 7.3 here. Three straight games of worse, and nobody on the schedule is going to stop trying it.

The other recurring number is third down, where the Raiders have gone 5 of 13, 4 of 14, 7 of 12 and 5 of 14. An offense that moves the ball 437 yards and comes away with 19 points through 56 minutes is a conversion problem, not a yardage problem.

The injury list added Jalen Nailor, who left with a concussion and is listed questionable. Trey Zuhn III went out and came back. Powers-Johnson was out before kickoff with soreness, along with Aidan O'Connell and Jonah Laulu.

What is next

New England, Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern at Gillette Stadium, with the Patriots at 2-2. The question that has to be answered by then is whether this front can hold up against a team that intends to run it, because for three weeks running it has not, and the Patriots will have watched the same tape everybody else did.